Treasuring Time
by HeyDay
Summary: The doctors told him he was not long for this world. The girl said it's never too late make it count.


**Just something I threw together for P3's Sun Arcana Social Link **

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Akinari remembered when the doctors gave the news of his death. The headaches, seizures, nausea and the difficulty in even remembering the simplest of words: his brain was rotting away and no force on the Earth could stop it. His mother cried at the grim prognosis but he didn't. He just remembered sitting there and feeling numb as the man in the white coat explained that he will have chemotherapy but that it will only be palliative. In short, they'll do what they can to prolong his days so that he faded away little by little instead of all at once.

But rest assured, the doctor told him. He was most certainly going to die this year. In the autumn at the latest.

Still, Akinari remembered how people told him that he'd make it through. They told him he was a fighter. They told him that they would be there behind him to the end. As if this was something he could fight, like delinquent in fisticuffs out at the school grounds.

His mother coddled him every day, and soon the coddling grew sickening so he would often try to get out of the house and go where she could not find him. If there was anything worse than sympathy, it was pity. People telling him they knew how he felt. What did they know?

This was why Akinari sat alone on a park bench every Sunday near the shrine with only the birds for company. He always hoped to die there. Just doze off in the sun and never wake up to a mother worrying over him like he was glass and friends who were too scared to see him because all they could see was a dead boy walking.

But then Minako came one Sunday to join him on that bench, and Akinari found he was happy to linger. Minako offered no encouragement, gave no opinions and made no attempts to reassure that the end would be a gentle thing like the doctors said. She listened, she stayed and perhaps because she gave no opinions on Akinari's thoughts, Akinari reckoned she understood him better than anyone else out there in the whole wide world. She showed him her music. She told him about her day. She treated him as if he had all the time to live.

Some days, she made him forget that time was something that was running out for him.

"I had plans you know," Akinari remembered chuckling to her on their third Sunday. "I was going to write a book after I graduated from college. I was going to leave something behind. But I'll never finish it. No-one will ever read it. Besides, I can't even find the words anymore." He rapped knuckles on his forehead, imagining the rot beneath continuing to spread like some shadowy pestilence. He wished he could just dig his fingers into his head and rip it out. If only things were so easy. There were no headaches today, but they'd be back. The doctors said he'd need to come back to the hospital for another round of chemotherapy. They're taking away some drugs and trying others. Drugs with names that Akinari could barely pronounce.

"I'd very much like to read it," Minako replied.

"You sure?"

"Only one way to find out."

"I'll bring you what I got. I've written most of it down in my notepad." Akinari usually brought it with him to the shrine every Sunday, but since Minako came by, he found he'd always forget. He'd come home and find it on his desk, and whereas before, he could barely hold a coherent thought, his talks with Minako had given his prose new life.

Minako grinned. "I'll hold you to it."

Autumn came by and Akinari found he could still go on. More often than not he had good days, where the headaches were faint, and the seizures few and his mind as sharp as it was once before. His mother thought the doctors were wrong. They thought that maybe he could be cured. Then a few weeks went by where Akinari went to the shrine with his notebook and found that Minako was not there. Victims of the Apathy Syndrome began to flood the streets in droves again. The news spoke of motor vehicle accidents where drivers fell asleep at the wheel, and vegetables in the hospital's ICU.

Akinari envied them. He wished he could stop caring about everything. One time Akinari had the fits while on the street and people backed away from him like he was a leper as he collapsed on the sidewalk and trembled despite the heat wave that day.

The headaches came back. His mother needed to mark a calendar so Akinari can remember his Sundays.

Perhaps there was a god out there, because the victims of the Apathy Syndrome made miraculous recoveries every month. Like a tide that ebbed in and out, their numbers would rise and then fall as the moon waxed and waned.

More Sundays flew by and Akinari began to wonder if Minako had been a figment of his rapidly declining imagination. Then he woke up one week in November to find Minako brushing his hair. He'd stop cleaning it. He'd stopped cutting it. He'd joked to himself that the drugs took it away better than any shave.

Minako had dark circles under her eyes and her usual neat ponytail was loose. The grin was still there, but it seemed there was less glee and more madness than before. She looked like she was thinking of taking on the world.

"Where were you?" Akinari asked as he watched her sit down.

"That's a secret. You have the notebook?" Minako asked as if hours instead of weeks had passed since their last meeting.

Akinaro showed her. Minako loved the pink alligator and smirked when she found out about the alligator's friend the bird. Akinari found that while he was with her, he could say outrageous things he would never say to anyone else. He remarked to her that he was always bad with girls, but it seemed that all it took for him be friends with one was his impending death.

"I've met Death," Minako said wickedly, leaning in close as if sharing a secret. "You'll like him."

"What's he like?"

"He's a little kid. Very mischievous. Wears pajamas all the time."

"Can you introduce me to him? Or better, can you talk to him and see if I can make it to the New Year?"

Minako laughed. "Oh no, he knows you already. He knows everyone. I don't see him much now, but I promise the next time I do, I'll be sure to mention you."

"I'll hold you to it."

They paused as Minako continued to flip through the notebook before frowning. "There's no ending." There were drabbles but they were all scribbled out, some pages simply slashed out with the pen.

"I haven't decided on how to end it yet. I'm trying, but I can't think of how I want it to end, and I'm not sure I'll have enough time."

Minako nodded. She handed the notebook back. "I'll be here next week and the one after. I'm sorry for ditching you like that."

"You don't have to apologize."

Minako's smile wavered. "And yet, I want to anyway." She waved goodbye and then she was off.

For a moment, Akinari noticed how slight a figure she cut as she walked away into the distance as if she bore a great weight on her shoulders.

Minako didn't show up next week. Akinari went to the hospital again. More headaches. More drugs. As they headed into winter, Akinari could feel his last days trickling away. He still tried to write. The notebook was running out of pages and the fountain pen was running out of ink. But one night by the lamp, he figured it out. He didn't remember writing it. He just woke up from his desk to find it before him, feverishly scrawled down in spidery handwriting. He mourned how it used to look like before the rot in his head made it worse.

He still went to the shrine every Sunday and waited for Minako. She still didn't show up. The Apathy Syndrome flooded the city with victims till they clogged the traffic in great mobs like a zombie apocalypse. Only they ate no-one. They just stood around as something ate away at them from the inside.

It was late December when he and Minako met again. She looked pale. She looked as sick as Akinari. Sicker even. She refused to speak of what happened since they last met up. "I finished it," he said,

"Did you now?" Minako's eyes were red and puffy. She was a shadow of the girl that first plopped herself down beside Akinari many months before. "That's great."

"Don't take my word for it. Have a look." He handed her his notebook. He had no more pages left, and the fountain pen had run dry. The fact pleased him. At the end of it all, he had everything he needed and nothing less.

Minako hesitated, and then she handed the notebook back to him. "I want you to read it to me," she said softly. "Please."

Akinari did. His voice was weak and reedy, but soon it gained strength. "Since the alligator ate his friend the bird, he cried and cried for a very long time. In fact, he was so sad that he drowned in his own tears. His tears became a beautiful lake around which grew beautiful flowers and a tree with delicious fruit. The other animals in the forest came there often to relax but none of them knew the alligator had created it or that he was gone. The end."

Minako sighed. "Congratulations. It's wonderful." She hesitated. She's been doing that more often than Akinari liked. "How much time do you have left now?"

"Not much. Doctors said they can do no more." Minako made to hand him back his notebook but he waved her off. "Keep it. I want you to have it."

"You sure?"

"Yes. This is the way it should be. This is what I want to leave behind and I want you to be the one to keep it."

Minako sighed. They sat there for a while. "Year's nearly over. So much has happened. My head's still spinning about it all"

"Do you think of how things might have gone differently?"

Minako smirked to herself. "All the time. By the way, I talked to Death."

"And?"

"That's it. He made no promises and gave no consolation. I reckon I might see him very soon."

"That makes two of us." Akinari stood up. His body felt lighter. He wondered if the end was coming for him sooner than he expected. "Thank you for everything. Your kindness has helped me see things more clearly. I'm sad that we didn't have more time to talk, but I'm glad for what we have had, and that is more than enough. Everyone has to go someday, but having met you, I can say honestly that I'm no longer afraid of the end."

Minako looked up at him, and Akinari barely had time to brace himself as she gave him an open embrace. "You're braver than I ever could be," she whispered fiercely. "I know this might not mean much, but you have helped me as well, and I hope we can meet again."

"When that day comes, I promise I'll be waiting to hear all about the things I've missed out on."

"I'll hold you to it."


End file.
